Darienne

Thanks for the answers. It's strictly for fun, and yes, they are sugar maples. Maybe next year...

Moussaka, made with Eggplant Cutlets, both recipes from Rachel Perlow in eG's Moussaka Cook Off Thread. And Spanakopita, pretty much an amalgam of three recipes, including Claudia Roden, A Book of Middle Easten Food. (Sorry about the fuzzy moussaka. I need both a new camera and a new photographer.)

Phoned McCall's...got a teenager...don't phone on a Saturday. It seems the difference between wholesale and retail is a $25 yearly membership, but the girl assured me it was well worth it. Thanks for starting us out, Kerry.

And thanks to you, Lapin d'or, for taking us through your process using some Mycryo.

DHardy is going to give me a sample of his Mycryo which is very nice. Also, I phoned this candy and supply store in Pickering and they have bars of cocoa butter. Small bars, about $2.50 a bar...probably tiny bars...but bars nonetheless and that should denote tempered cocoa butter. We'll pick some up next trip west. The whole matter is more experimentation than anything else. Need to try EVERYTHING.

Confectionery partner, Barbara, and I are off to Toronto fairly soon and want to know where to buy confectionery supplies: chocolate couverture, Mycryo, chocolate moulds & stencils, hard candy moulds, caramel rulers, aluminum baking pans, in essence all things you can't buy in a small city like Peterborough (or as we call it, Peterpatch ) Oh, add the Perfect Brownie pan if you know where to buy one. I've tried: Michael's, HomeSense, Home Outfitters, Sears. I'd like two for moulds for toffee. I know Target has them in the USA. We don't intend to buy all the above...we just want to know where to buy them and neither of us knows Toronto. Thanks.

Oh... I see... Hmmm.... Thanks, Edward J. Will keep all that in mind. Thanks for your detailed answer.

OK. No problem. I'll ask David Hardy for some. He offered to give me some when we come to your class in May. I just turned him down...but now will just turn him up.

Nope. not suitable. I do have all sorts of mini-pans already. You can't spread hot toffee in such little pans. Not enough time. But thanks for the idea.

Sounds good to me. Usually temper about two pounds if by hand. (Have a Revolation I and so often temper by machine. )

I don't know about the 'stupid' part...surely human. Perhaps you could suggest that to Steve Lebovits as a short chocolate project to try. And thanks about the Mycryo. That's super of you. I've already told Kerry...not letting anyone off the hook. I am going to try the process with my LorAnn cocoa butter next. If only I could just play at chocolatier all day long...

Somebody PLEASE ANSWER MY QUESTION!!! How often do you use this method? Why or why not?

Thanks Bob for your offer but I'm sure I can get some in Canada, through Kerry Beal perhaps. Friends and I are taking a chocolate class from Kerry in May. Do tell me though...how often do YOU use this technique for tempering and why or why not? Thanks again.

Hi David, Thanks for the answer. Although I have read and heard about Mycryo, I never really addressed my lack of knowledge at the time. The time is now. I do have some LorAnn cocoa butter on hand. Is it good enough to use? Chef Eddy uses Callebaut cocoa butter. Do you use this method often? All the time? Why or why not? Thanks.

Chef Eddy van Damme has a very nice blog which I have just started to follow...that's what I need...more blogs to follow . Chef Eddy's last post was about tempering chocolate using grated cocoa butter I think I'll try it. Had anyone tried this technique? Does anyone use this technique regularly? Any opinions, advice, etc? All replies gratefully received.

I could pm you my dog biscuit recipe. It is the least 'grain' and other basically non-dog related recipes I have used. It's a recipe born of putting together the best of a few recipes I found years ago. The only 'problem' with it, in terms of sale, is that it is made only of REAL food, has no preservatives, and won't last forever like the commercial dog food biscuits. (Kind of 'problem' that I like.) ps. Being made of REAL food, the biscuits will go bad after a length of time. I can't say how long...I make 4x batch, we keep them in the fridge and I've not had them go bad yet in years of making them.

The painful truth is that it's been years since I even made bread in a machine and at that I had to relearn that simple process. I used to make bread constantly in my bread machine, in my 'cooking under duress' days, and had designed my own bread recipe which we loved...to our detriment. The even more distressing truth is that I have never made bread any other way and it is now one of my next projects...in a long line of culinary projects stretching out, no doubt, far beyond my lifetime. Thanks again, David. Boozy Oven-baked French Toast will have to wait until the next loaf...this one is almost all gone already.

Hi therippa, I'm going to assume that you are asking the question of me. Upon re-reading the topic, I see that I never explained clearly just why I wanted that particular pan. Confectionery partner, Barbara, and I make this copy cat version of Enstrom's toffee...the best toffee I have ever eaten...which is coated with chocolate after cooling. If you cover the top and bottom of the toffee with chocolate and then break the toffee into pieces (shards), some of the chocolate can come off in uneven patches. If you cut the toffee in the pan, it's not that easy to get the pieces even and cut through although with experience I could get it right no doubt. Caramel rulers, which I don't own, might be useful for the cutting process. It just struck me that this brownie pan, with its set-in divider, might be the answer to our situation, two pans. We could just set the divider into the cooling toffee, and the resulting pieces would be small and even, and we could simply dip them right into the chocolate, sprinkle one side with chopped nuts and le voila! Michaels no longer carries the pans. Winners/HomeSense in Peterborough had no idea what I was talking about. They have another brand of the pans at Hendrix but they cost too much for my taste. So...

My Challah is baked, in the bread machine, David Goldfarb's recipe (thanks again, David), un-braided (next one will be braided). Beautiful loaf, lovely texture, delicious taste. My original purpose in making the Challah was to use it in the recipe for oven-baked French Toast (titled: Boozy Baked French Toast, Smitten Kitchen) which called for Challah and which I made a few days ago with a French baguette. The braided shape would have no purpose in this dish and so I just plopped...as it were...the ingredients in the machine, pressed the button, and walked away. This will be a great dish for the Annual Dog Weekend bunch! Thanks to all for all the input. All duly noted and squirreled away.

4 legged variety, or in a bun type? How would a 4 legged dog get into the maple syrup? Our two dogs had just arrived and so were maple syrup-free, but their three dogs, two of them Goldens with long fur, had somehow gotten maple syrup on themselves, particularly their tails and hind feathers. Imagine a hot dog in a bun with maple syrup??? Strange pairings. Not so strange really; think of a buttered, toasted bun with a nice pork/beef hot dog and a sluice of maple syrup over all. I love breakfas sausage dipped in the maple syrup from the french toast; a hot dog isn't all THAT different, no? Aarrgghh. Ya got me.

What about one of the fancy chopping set-ups? Williams Sonoma professional multi chopper

Would two huge Maple trees be worth tapping? We have two just behind the farmhouse. It's too late this year to think about it for us, but maybe next year? I have no idea of how much sap one tree will provide.

Thanks Emmalish. I had quite forgotten that these pans will be supervised in their use. The kitchen queen. I also reign over my Paderno pans (I know, I know, they hardly register on the pan Richter scale, but I bought them pre-eGullet.) They aren't even kept with the regular cooking pans. My old rusted metal baking pans, some of which date back 50 years, were not precious to me at all. I cooked...under some duress. Pretty much all wives and mothers cooked fifty years ago...like it or not. Oh well. Whatever. That was then...this is now. My new baking pans will not be used even temporarily to store nails. Or to heat up leftovers. "Let's just cut that sucker up using a sharp knife on the bottom of the pan." Hmmm...my old cake pans are still fine. I guess cake pans were never used as all purpose containers. My, my, how eGullet has changed my life.

Yesterday I bought some new baking pans by Doughmakers at our local and only restaurant supply store, Hendrix. The pans are manufactured in the USA...WOW!...of recycled aluminum and have a pebbled interior surface. The pans are featured at Doughmakers website. (I also bought the familiar smooth interior finish 1/4 sheets, etc, at the store...in the smaller sizes, e.g., 9" square, 9"x13", they carry only this pebbled finish.) I would call the pan surface almost crackled perhaps. Not a non-stick finish; more of a satin shine I guess. Of course they will not rust. And the manufacturer claims that the baked goods brown evenly and have an easy release. But I keep looking at the crackled, pebbled finish and wondering...will it become a royal pain to clean? I can still take them back. I did see some smaller aluminum baking pans at Canadian Tire for the first time...smooth interior finish. Perhaps tried and true is better...???

Talk about synchronicity. Today the blog 'Always Order Dessert' has a video tutorial on making the six strand braided Challah loaf.